The Rainbow

They were both absorbed into a profound silence, into a deep,

fluid underwater energy that gave them unlimited strength. All

the dancers were waving intertwined in the flux of music.

Shadowy couples passed and repassed before the fire, the dancing

feet danced silently by into the darkness. It was a vision of

the depths of the underworld, under the great flood.

There was a wonderful rocking of the darkness, slowly, a

great, slow swinging of the whole night, with the music playing

lightly on the surface, making the strange, ecstatic, rippling

on the surface of the dance, but underneath only one great flood

heaving slowly backwards to the verge of oblivion, slowly

forward to the other verge, the heart sweeping along each time,

and tightening with anguish as the limit was reached, and the

movement, at crises, turned and swept back.

As the dance surged heavily on, Ursula was aware of some

influence looking in upon her. Something was looking at her.

Some powerful, glowing sight was looking right into her, not

upon her, but right at her. Out of the great distance, and yet

imminent, the powerful, overwhelming watch was kept upon her.

And she danced on and on with Skrebensky, while the great, white

watching continued, balancing all in its revelation.

"The moon has risen," said Anton, as the music ceased, and

they found themselves suddenly stranded, like bits of jetsam on

a shore. She turned, and saw a great white moon looking at her

over the hill. And her breast opened to it, she was cleaved like

a transparent jewel to its light. She stood filled with the full

moon, offering herself. Her two breasts opened to make way for

it, her body opened wide like a quivering anemone, a soft,

dilated invitation touched by the moon. She wanted the moon to

fill in to her, she wanted more, more communion with the moon,

consummation. But Skrebensky put his arm round her, and led her

away. He put a big, dark cloak round her, and sat holding her

hand, whilst the moonlight streamed above the glowing fires.

She was not there. Patiently she sat, under the cloak, with

Skrebensky holding her hand. But her naked self was away there

beating upon the moonlight, dashing the moonlight with her

breasts and her knees, in meeting, in communion. She half

started, to go in actuality, to fling away her clothing and flee

away, away from this dark confusion and chaos of people to the

hill and the moon. But the people stood round her like stones,

like magnetic stones, and she could not go, in actuality.

Skrebensky, like a load-stone weighed on her, the weight of his

presence detained her. She felt the burden of him, the blind,

persistent, inert burden. He was inert, and he weighed upon her.

She sighed in pain. Oh, for the coolness and entire liberty and

brightness of the moon. Oh, for the cold liberty to be herself,

to do entirely as she liked. She wanted to get right away. She

felt like bright metal weighted down by dark, impure magnetism.

He was the dross, people were the dross. If she could but get

away to the clean free moonlight.